


Dearly Departed

by Goldy



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 20:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21214562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldy/pseuds/Goldy
Summary: Jughead comforts Betty at Hal’s grave. Missing scene from 4x01, In Memoriam.





	Dearly Departed

Betty was eight-years old when her father invited her to help him with the family’s beat up Toyota Carola vehicle. He called her into the garage where she found the hood up and a box of tools propped open against one of the rear tires. He handed her a wrench and she held it proudly, suddenly feeling very grown-up and important.

She remembers her eyes going side as he pointed to each part and explained what they did. Engine oil level. Transmission fluid. Battery. Belts and hoses.

His voice was patient and calm then tickled with amusement when she stood on her tiptoes to get a better look, struggling to hold the wrench in one hand and keep her balance. She remembers that he picked her up, laughter rumbling in his chest as she eagerly drunk in the wires and bolts parts. The parts under the hood felt mysterious and exciting – even at eight-years old, she felt a yearn to _know _the car, to manipulate it under her hands until she could control it.

Her father taught her. In the spring, he bought an old 1970s Volkswagen Beetle for the parade on the fourth of July. The Beetle was a pale blue colour and made a whining noise when they tried to turn her on.

_“We’re going to fix it up together, honey,” he said. “You and me.”_

They did. Sunday afternoons, through May and June, they worked together to fix the Beetle. As the weeks passed, the weather turned warmer, and the flowers turned to full bloom out front. She remembers Archie playing catch with Fred Andrews in the street, her mother bringing them iced tea on hot, sunny afternoons.

But mostly she remembers those hours with her father. She remembers the proud glint in his eyes when she started to memorize the names in the toolbox and then when she started to bring him the right tools without being asked. She remembers how she would point to gears and bolts under the hood and ask what they did and where they went. She remembers the joy in his voice when he answered her questions. Finally, the night before the parade, they fixed the Beetle so she started with a purr instead of a whine.

That fourth of July, she rode in the passenger seat next to her dad, smile threatening to break her face apart as they inched along in the parade. She waved and waved and waved out of the open windows as her father laughed in delight next to her.

The memory is sharp in Betty’s mind as she crouches down next to her father’s grave. Her father’s laugh rings in her ears even as the graffiti etched words on his grave burn into her eyes:

_THE BLACK HOOD BURNS IN HELL._

She clears away the garbage littering the front of the grave and then leans back on her haunches.

She thinks about the smile on her father’s face as they finished the parade, his hand on her neck as he swooped in to kiss her forehead.

_“I love you, honey,” he said. “You’ll always be my little girl.”_

She had felt so loved and safe and warm.

She always was her father’s daughter. As Polly grew older, she spent more time with her girlfriends and less time with her younger sister. She would disappear upstairs with her friends, giggling and shrieking, experimenting with makeup and nail polish.

As Betty grew older, she took solace in the garage with her father. They worked in companionable silence most afternoons, the silence broken by her father’s murmured directions and recommendations.

In the present, Betty pushes herself to her feet, eyes still on Hal’s gravestone. Warm summer breeze rustles through the trees. Despite the hot sun, she finds herself shivering and she folds her arms across her chest.

Behind her, she hears plodding footsteps, a twig snapping. Then Jughead’s voice: “Betty?”

His voice is questioning, worried. She hadn’t told him where she was going. But she isn’t surprised that he found her so quickly. He’s been sticking close to her since Fred Andrews died. He’s been there for her since Hal died, of course, but since Fred… his gaze has been more intense, his hugs more reassuring, as if he’s been waiting for Fred to re-ignite her grief all over again.

She wants to reassure him. “I’m okay, Jug,” she says, trying to keep her voice light, but there’s a lump in her throat and her voice cracks on the word “_okay.”_

He comes up beside her, hand falling on her shoulder. “Hey,” he says, “we talked about this, remember? You never have to be ‘okay’ around me.”

His hand moves to the back of her neck and he pulls her closer to him so he can press a kiss to the top of her head.

In the distance, she can still hear the murmur of mourners at Fred Andrews’ gravestone. It sounds like half the town is still saying their goodbyes. Tears spring to her eyes. Her heart goes out to Archie all over again.

But there’s another part of her… a part of her that envies him. Archie’s grief isn’t complicated. He doesn’t have to hide it from those around him. He doesn’t have to wait until the middle of the night to cry into his pillow. Archie gets to grieve in public. He gets to lean on his mother, on his friends, and the whole town. Fred Andrews was the best they had and he’s gone.

Hal Cooper was the worst they had. No one mourns his death. For weeks and months, people will come by to leave flowers by Fred Andrews’ grave. If they stop by Hal Cooper’s grave, it will be to mutter a curse or fling garbage.

She sucks in a tight breath. “I miss him, Jug,” she finds herself saying. “Not the… not the Black Hood. But my dad. I miss my dad.”

“I know,” he whispers, and his voice is heavy and _sad_ like he wants to take all her pain and grief and make it his own.

She keeps going. “Growing up, my mom and Polly… it was like they had this secret club that I wasn’t part of it. I always felt like I was letting her down. That I wasn’t pretty enough or smart enough or thin enough. But my dad… you know what he was like. He wasn’t always around, but when he was… he made me feel like he was proud of me.”

“He was,” Jughead says. “I saw you two together when we were young. That was real, Betty. He was your dad. He loved you.”

She nods, but she will never be sure – she will never know where her father ended and the Black Hood began. Even back then, when he was working with her to fix that Volkswagen Beetle, teaching her patiently about tools and batteries and compression coils, how much of him belonged to the Black Hood?

“Sometimes I think that’s why he targeted me,” she whispers. She shivers again. “We were always close, Jug. And he chose me. Not my mom, not Polly… me.”

She thinks about prom night, the terror of her father chasing her through the school. What would he have done if he caught her? Would he have killed her?

She starts to shake and her teeth are chattering. She’s dimly aware of Jughead’s face crumpling with concern, but then he’s pulling her towards him, pressing her up against his chest, his arms around her.

“Betty,” he says, pressing his cheek against the top of her head. “I am so sorry.”

He holds her until the shaking subsides, his hands smoothing in comforting patterns over her back. And isn’t this, in a way, her ultimate victory against her father? Hal Cooper tried to separate her from Jughead – he blackmailed her until she agreed to cut him out of her life. Now Hal is gone, and she and Jughead are stronger than ever. She lives with him, in the Cooper house, in her bedroom. The whole summer, he’s been there for her – hand on her knee when he catches her gazing off into the distance, lips pressed to the crown of her head when she wakes up screaming in the middle of the night.

And he’s never said a bad word about Hal Cooper to her, not once.

So she can do this. She can be there for Archie. She can stand strong with Jughead and Veronica while Archie leans on him. She will be Archie’s best friend. 

She will do all of that and she will do it without cracking. She will be Betty Cooper.

She pulls away from Jughead and takes his hands in hers. He looks down at her hands and then back at her face, concern still etched in his eyes.

“You’re not alone in this, Betty,” he says softly. And then, sincerely, “I won’t leave you alone with this. I promise.”

She feels a flush come to her cheeks. They’ve been together two years now, and Jughead can still look at her so _intently _that it makes her blush and her stomach fold over nervously. 

“I’m okay,” she says. “Really this time.” She gestures her head back towards where they left the rest of the mourners. “We should get back. Archie needs us.”

He hesitates, and then glances over at Hal Cooper’s grave. His eyes are troubled as he reads over the graffiti on the headstone. “We’ll come back tomorrow. Clean that up.”

She shakes her head. “They’ll just do it again.”

“Then we’ll come back and we will clean it up again.”

She almost protests. It feels like a waste when they have a best friend to support and a senior year of high school starting and college applications to start. But Hal Cooper will never have a funeral. Hal Cooper will never have a police escort or a wake. Hal Cooper will never have anyone leave flowers at his grave.

Hal Cooper does not have anyone else.

“Okay,” she says with resignation. “We’ll look after him.”

He smiles at her, a smile that does not quite reach his eyes because Fred Andrews is still _gone _and their best friend is still grieving, but it is still a smile. So she does the only thing she can – she smiles back at him. His arm slides across her shoulders and her arm curls around his waist until she is tucked up tightly against him.

They walk out of the cemetery arm in arm.

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to come say hi on tumblr: [@go-ldy](https://go-ldy.tumblr.com/).


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